HTC Desire 526G+ review – 1.7GHz MediaTek Octa Core powered

The Desire 526G+ is a budget friendly octa core powered smartphone from a well known brand, HTC. This dual SIM handset with 3G support houses a 1.7GHz MediaTek octa core powered chipset running Android KitKat, it is priced at Rs. 10,400 available exclusively on Snapdeal.com.

Box Pack
I got the handset for the review, without the box packing. Inside the box I guess you will get the handset, earphone, screen guard, travel charger, data cable and user manual / warranty card.

Design, Display and OS
The 526G+ looks really good, gives a premium feel and its quite unique. The screen area is a little out (check images / video review). The speaker in placed on the front bottom. Handset is a bit heavy 153 grams with battery and dimensions are 68.95 x 139.36 x 9.85 (mm). This is a dual SIM handset, you need 2 micro SIM’s. It looks as if there are dual front speaker, but that is not the case, there is incall speaker and a loud speaker.

The front / rear are glossy black and the sides are greyish coloured with metallic finish. The body is made of plastic, good built quality and finishing. The back cover somewhat looks similar to Moto G.

Volume rocker and power button are placed on the right, 3.5mm audio jack on the top and micro USB port plus mic at the bottom.

This handset sports a 4.7 inch screen with 960 x 540 pixels resolution with just 2 point multi touch support. Viewing angles are okay and so is the colour reproduction. There are 3 sensors – accelerometer, light and proximity.

HTC Desire 526G+ is running Android 4.4.2 out of the box with HTC blinkfeed.

Memory and Storage
There is 1GB RAM and 16GB storage along with 32GB micro SD card support. You will get around 12GB space for apps and about 643MB free RAM on first boot. OTG is not supported and apps get installed on the internal storage.

Performance and Benchmark
526G+ houses the MediaTek MT6592 1.7GHz octa core cortex A7 processor with Mali 450 MP GPU. Performance is very good and lag free. I did face issues running Antutu benchmark got thermal warning (even when battery temperature was 38 degrees) and system rebooted. But I was able to run the Antutu benchmark later on, probably a software glitch.

Benchmark

App

Result

Quadrant

14210

Antutu

32073

Vellamo

Metal (979) Multi core (1450) Browser (2120)

Nenamark 2

52.3 fps

Multi Touch

2 point

Gaming
I played Asphalt 8 that got installed on the internal storage. Game play was smooth. The 2 point multi screen, at times are not that responsive.

Camera
An 8MP AF camera is packed on the rear with LED flash and a 2MP on the front. Front camera is fixed focus and does not support native video calling. Rear camera though 8MP can shoot really good above average still images and videos. Check the sample images / videos at the end of this review.

Others
Apart from Antutu benchmark and battery calibration problems, I did not find any other issues. 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS worked well. Sound (speaker / incall) is loud and clear.

Battery
The handset houses a 2000 mAh removable battery. For most of the review time the battery % was stuck at 98% because of battery calibration issue, I restarted the system after completing the review and battery dropped by 42% in about 1 hour 16 minutes with moderate to heavy usage.

I guess battery backup is average – around 3 to 5 hours.

Verdict
There are many handsets available in the market in this price rage. But if you are looking for a branded handset with powerful hardware the HTC Desire 526G+ is the closest you can get. Though the screen resolution and the multi touch support is kind of disappointing.

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{ 46 Responses }

The worst mobile ever I have used. Plz don’t go for HTC desire G+. THERE is heating problem. If our WiFi is on and if it is in auto mode then while connecting to other WiFi available nearby devices phone heats up near to 50 DEGREES, secondly from the day I have bought there is no single update available and phone discharges very soon, only full battery will last for 6hrs if u moderately use it.

hello sir,
my htc desire 526g+ was heating too much on 1st day of use later the temp dropped down somehow but still it is heating quite considerabily while multitasking..i bought it frm flipkart and 30-day return policy is still active..so should i opt for replacement??..pls suggest asap..

Recently I purchased htc 526+ withing 2 weeks the mic quality started failing who so ever used to call me used to complain about mic issue. Its not good phone to go for the screen is dull nothing so great about it.

My friend wants to buy this phone. But as you said that it has only two point multi touch. So is it a big problem while playing games? As far what I think, asphalt 8 and almost all other games uses max of two point multi touch only ( two thumbs). Am I right? Should he go for it?

If you like the handset then go ahead, 2 point will not give you comfortable experience with games that can accept more then 3 touches simultaneously. As for Asphalt you get option to either use combination of sensors or touch, so not at all an issue with Asphalt.

Can you pls advise me I have used the htc desire 526 g plus I want to stop the cam shutter sound but there is no options in camera properties pls advise me how I can stop this and also sound system is not good pls advise how I can change the setting in sound system.

After a couple of months xolo,lava,mmx,celkon,mi…. Like brands stops working we are unable to open gallery,camera,even contacts but like sony,htc,lenovo… Has a very long life
in last we sell these mobiles due to getting bore by using same model

but they don’t stop their work till last these brands do good; for what they are made

If you reboot and you see a chance in the battery % you need to calibrate the battery. Process is simple drain it until handset switches off then change to 100% and use until handset switches off by itself (ignore the battery %) after few cycles the battery % will get accurate.

The 5 inch trend was started by Micromax, which is oversize. This phone is rightly sized at 4.7 inch, though the screen resolution is 540 p. The cons are- only 2 point multi touch and no magnetic and gyro sensor. Apart from that, the CPU+GPU of this device is powerful.